Tribune Opinion: Disdain for transparency from 5 Greeley-Evans School District 6 school board members leaves nothing to smile about

Roger DeWitt, right, and Doug Lidiak change seats after DeWitt was elected the new school president last year. John Haefeli, left, and Steve Hall were also newly elected members of the school board along with Rhonda Solis.

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When the Greeley-Evans School District 6 Board of Education forced out Superintendent Ranelle Lang in a negotiated resignation this June, there was precious little discussion — at least in public — about the move, which cost taxpayers more than $250,000.

Behind the scenes, however, a group of five board members had been busy, working to bring about the change. In so doing, they violated Colorado’s Open Meeting Act, excluded from the decision-making process the public whose money they spent and kept two other members of the board in the dark.

Emails obtained by The Greeley Tribune through a Colorado Open Records Act request mention “numerous phone exchanges” between the five board members as they sought Lang’s dismissal.

In other emails to board President Roger DeWitt, and others, school board members Doug Lidiak and Julia Richard decried the lack of transparency and raised their own concerns that the five other members — DeWitt, John Haefeli, Rhonda Solis, Logan Richardson and Steve Hall — violated state law when they secretly agreed to terminate Lang without public discussion or a public vote.

“…Through a series of phone calls the majority made a decision before we discussed options and ramifications as a board or even voted or properly vetted,” Lidiak said in a June 22 email to DeWitt, just two days before the board accepted Lang’s resignation. “And now the expectation is that we come in and just accept the resignation. I think this lacks transparency.”

Colorado Freedom of Information Coalition President and Greeley Tribune attorney Steve Zansberg said it is clear that the board’s secret conversations violated the state’s open meeting law and a host of legal precedents set in courtrooms across the nation.

“There’s case law throughout the country,” Zansberg said. “Through a series of meetings, each less than a quorum, they are purposefully evading the open meetings law. Every court that has addressed this has decided it’s a flagrant break of open meetings laws.”

This flouting of the law is maddening for a host of reasons.

First, it violates the trust of residents within District 6 and can easily lead to confusion. The same five board members who secretly pushed for Lang’s ouster had given her a positive review and approved the district’s budget in public votes just weeks earlier. By holding private phone conversations about the future of the district’s chief executive instead of engaging in public discussions and votes, they deprived parents in the district of their reasons for the change. In fact, roughly four weeks after Lang’s departure, we have yet to really hear from any board member about why they chose to spend a quarter million dollars of public money when other options that also would have seen Lang leave existed.

Second, it stains what would otherwise have been a positive fresh start for the district. Many in the community — including us — believe that a change at the top is warranted. However, even the most ardent supporter of the board’s decision can’t help but question the manner in which it was done.

Lastly, the needless secrecy will only engender cynicism about the politics on the board. All five members talked at length during last fall’s election campaign about the need to improve transparency.

Their actions — and subsequent statements about those actions — have shown only disdain for the public’s right to know.

For example, after board members became aware of The Tribune’s request for emails, Solis sent a message to fellow members in which she joked about avoiding group emails in the future. Instead, she suggested, they should simply go to lunch. She ended the email with a smiley face.

We’re not smiling about five school board members who seem to hold in disdain the Colorado open meetings laws and the concept of transparency.

Later, in an interview this week with The Tribune, DeWitt offered up a confounding quip about vampires to explain his views on open meetings.

“You can talk to me as a board member, and I can take from our conversation and talk to another board member. We meet in groups of two, kind of like vampires. You can’t have too many in one place at one time.”

We expect more from our elected officials. They must strive to protect the community’s right know and err on the side of transparency, rather than seek ways to skirt the law. Only a scrupulous effort by board members to ensure openness will build the kind of trust between the school board and voters this community and school district need.

All seven members of the board have said they will strive to be more open as the search for Lang’s replacement progresses. We hope they live up to that promise.